Finishing out a softer fourth quarter, comic store orders for the top comics were weaker in December, with over twice as many titles dropping (sixteen) as increased (seven) in the top 25.Marvel is re-asserting itself at the top of the list, with nine of the top ten titles and seventeen of the top 25.DC had one of the top ten, and four of the top 25.Dreamwave and Image each had two titles in the top 25, with none in the top ten.

The aforementioned Dreamwave and Image ranks are significant for another reason:they may indicate the first sign of weakness in the strong retro trend that's been driving sales in pop culture stores for the last couple of years.This was the first month since February without a retro title in the top ten titles, and there were only five retro titles in the top 25, down from six last month.Robotech #1 from DC finished just out of the top 25 at #26.

Marvel's Ultimate War series debuted strong, with initial raw orders from North American comic stores of over 120,000 copies for the first issue.And the third issue of Jim Lee's run on DC's Batman (#610) was up over 15% from the second (#609), a rare trend-breaker.

Retro did better on the graphic novel list, with three out of the top ten titles drawn from retro properties, including the #1 graphic novel for November -- Transformers Profile Book #1. Among series trade paperbacks, Love Hina showed its continued surprising strength, with volume #8, in the #8 rank, up from its orders in #7 and at around double the orders for #1.

Here are the initial raw orders from pop culture stores on the top 25 comic titles for December:

122,884Ultimate War #1

116,013Ultimate War #2

109,415Batman #610

101,811Ultimates #9

99,404Ultimate Spider-Man #33

96,154New X-Men #135

93,867Amazing Spider-Man #48

92,160Ultimate Spider-Man #32

88,276Uncanny X-Men #416

87,893Ultimate X-Men #26

73,385Transformers War Within #3

67,870Transformers Armada #6

67,761Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra#2

66,360Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra#3

64,620Wolverine #184

62,454Masters of the Universe #2

61,557JLA #76

60,889Truth #2

57,410Captain America #7

57,257Thundercats #5

55,506Avengers #61

55,145Avengers #62

54,904GI Joe #13

54,292Daredevil #40

53,745Green Arrow #20

Notes on this chart:

Some titles have been truncated or abbreviated for space reasons.

Publisher abbreviations have also been used.

Mar = Marvel

Dar = Dark Horse

Dre = Dreamwave

Ima = Image

Bla = Black Bull

Car = Cartoon Books

Har = Harris

Cro = Crossgen

Bon = Bongo

Tok = Tokyo Pop

Cha = Chaos

The quantities in this chart are ICv2 estimates of initial raw orders to Diamond North America on titles scheduled for shipment in December 2002.They do not include orders placed with Diamond UK, late orders, advance reorders, distributor over-orders, or reorders.

Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image distribute 100% of their comic store orders through Diamond. Some other publishers distribute directly to stores or through other distributors and as a result this analysis may underestimate their sales.

Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image distribute some of their titles through channels other than comic specialty stores, e.g., newsstands and bookstores. These quantity estimates do not reflect distribution through those channels.

The quantities above do not include advance reorders, late orders, or reorders.

Most of the titles on this chart are also distributed to Europe by Diamond UK, which can account for significant sales for the publisher, ranging from 3-20% of the US numbers. Sales by Diamond UK are not included in the numbers above.

Even given the above, however, it is probably safe to say that these quantities reflect 80% or more of the total North American sales by the publisher on most periodical comics.

One other factor to consider is that sales through Diamond and other comic distributors are non-returnable to retailers.That means that there is a considerable unknown percentage of books unsold at the retailer level.If that percentage is 10-20% of sales (a reasonable assumption), the estimates above may be quite close to actual sales to consumers.